


only trying to do my job tonight

by scarecrowes



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowes/pseuds/scarecrowes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's always enough time for the thought that they shouldn't do this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only trying to do my job tonight

  
When Charlie pulls him away from a poker game at three in the morning, the first thing Rothstein thinks of is business. It always is, with them - or should be, but then Charlie has an awful habit of digging under his skin and keeping there.  
  
"I need to talk to you," was all Charlie had said, crouched low by the table in his usual place - and they'd been going for hours enough that AR was the only one reluctant to break after the next hand.  
  
"What is it?" He finally gets the chance to ask, led into an empty hallway of the hotel by the younger man, who shouldn't  _be_  here - but Charlie just shakes his head.  
  
"Just - come on."  
  
In a better universe he wouldn't listen, would shoo Charlie back downstairs and return to the blue bloods and the card game - but in a better universe he wouldn't be here to begin with, and there's something anxious in the boy's eyes that throws him off.  
  
It's that which lets him get as far as an empty room with his back against the door before he catches Charlie's hands and turns them over, finding that it's not just his own sleeplessness that made him think the younger man was shaking.  
  
He sees enough of the black residue rimming Charlie's palms before he pulls away - and it's simple then, to know why he's here.  
  
"Busy night?" He asks with no true sincerity, or so he'd say if asked, and Charlie tilts forward enough to rest his hand on the door.  
  
Close enough then to see the blood on his shirt cuff, small dots against white.  
  
"There are girls for this, you know." AR mutters, and doesn't look up from Charlie's buttons enough to see the younger man flush and falter, unsure how much of it was a joke. "Or Meyer."  
  
"...It won't work."  
  
He doesn't have to ask and Charlie doesn't elaborate, but it doesn't help that he's never quite seen him this way and still, he  _knows_  it. It's the pit of his stomach before the turn of the cards, or maybe  _after_ , everything receding and he needs to click it all back into place.  
  
He can't help but wonder how cold Charlie must get, when the boy's teeth set on his throat - how much he has to turn things off, and that's what this must be. Returning from some poorly lit alleyway and a heartless place, and Arnold finds it foreign either way.  
  
They end up sliding to the floor eventually, Charlie all wordless, muffled noises and mindless to the gunpowder stains embedded in his fingers. He's always been something like quiet here, more hard breathing and sound than sentences strung together, but how hard he's teething his lip as AR undoes his shirt should make him pause, or stop.  
  
They don't.  
  
And Charlie shoves him backward until his shoulders hit the carpet, a warm palm against his chest with that gaudy ring still on. Charlie looks down at him and seems too young and broken open to ever be the man who keeps more than a pocket knife tucked into his coat.  
  
Except he still has his holster stripped and laid next to his shirt, and he straddles AR's hips and whispers,  _fuckin' do it already_  with all his violence and fear intact. This can't keep going, Arnold knows, and it won't; eventually he'll have to push Charlie back and tell him to leave. Or he'll simply stop coming, grown cold enough to fall back in with his heart alone.  
  
Tonight, though, he drops himself onto AR with little more than a palm full of spit and a shuddering sound, and it's only since they're alone that he lets Arnold  _see_  it. More than just his face, but that singular moment where he's broken entirely, caught between pain and  _anything, anything you want--_  
  
It's exactly what he shouldn't do.  
  
They end up against the wall again, Charlie's legs hiked up and his forehead pushed to AR's shoulder, and Rothstein finds himself mumbling into Charlie's hair, all dark curls pulled out of place,  _it's alright, Charlie, it's all-_  
  
And it's not, couldn't be, but the way Charlie bites down to keep from making noise as he shivers and  _comes_  says he's fine - burned low and perfect, things he takes without even needing to ask for.  
  
AR will have bruises later, but it's nowhere his collar won't conceal. He'll slide back to his place at the tables with a coffee cup nearby and keep _winning_  - and Charlie will slip out like he isn't limping slightly, throwing AR a crooked grin that means something warm he's never been able to place.  
  
He waits for something to drop, not wanting or needing anything less than  _all_  after months of broken trust and near war. But Charlie kisses him, just once, open while he's redoing his cuffs and too fast for him to respond properly.  
  
"Sorry," comes the muttered reply at how he blinks after it, not quite meant or eye level, and then AR's left in the hall with his tongue searching the roof of his mouth.  
  
He tastes cotton and ashtrays, and he'll notice only later the small grey stain in his sleeve.


End file.
